Konnie chose a trip to Manhattan to celebrate the 2012 version of her birthday.  While it is my third trip in the past three and a half months, there is never a shortage of things of interest to do here and, now that we have been here frequently this past decade, we have our favorites to return to also.

So for this trip our shows included George and Ira Gershwin’s “Nice Work If You Can Get It” with Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara, a musical comedy full of Gershwin standards that continue to be recorded by artists today, and “Newsies.” “Newsies” is a Disney production that is mostly a song and dance review.  Entertaining, but a song and dance review none the less, with no song I had previously heard.

On Friday we spent the day at the New York Botanical Gardens, a mere 250 acres of vegetation in the Bronx.  We previously visited there to see a Dale Chihuly exhibition and made the return trip via the Metro-North Railroad this time to visit their Monet’s Garden exhibition.  We roamed the grounds most of the day including making our first trip to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, a worthwhile destination for its over 4,000 rose plants (www.nybg.org/gardens/rose-garden/).

Dining this trip included Novita (www.novita.com), a small Italian place on 22nd Street that we return to every trip.  On a Thursday evening they had eight specials plus the full menu as well as the usual accommodating and personable Italian wait staff.  We were 30 minutes early yet the owner gave us glasses of prosecco for our wait.  I told him we were early and he did not need to do anything complimentary.  He said “we call it hospitality.”  Totally contrary to what we have grown accustomed to at our local Italian eatery in Cherry Creek where there is no consideration for frequent customers and you now might even get seated at one of the incredibly tight two top tables next to the wine refrigerator that is now situated in the middle of the dining room.

After that it was Naya at 64th and 2nd (www.nayarestaurants.com), a new Lebanese place for us that had about the most interesting interior design of any restaurant we have visited.  The space is probably all of about twelve feet wide but with the white plastic panels on the walls with lighting behind the panels, they have made it quite interesting and the food was very good as well as reasonable.

We tried Otto, a Mario Batali restaurant in Greenwich Village.  It was a very large space that was very busy and loud.  Despite its famous owner, probably a one shot deal for us.  We finished up with a repeat visit to Raddicho (www.radicchiopastaandrisotto.com/), a very small space that seats a maximum of 30 diners on East 53rd Street.  Respectable food at slightly less than Denver prices.

That’s all for this trip.  Coming up, another high school class reunion and Baseball Tour 2012.

Konnie and I have become accustomed to the longer trips that we have been taking the past few years so one that lasts a week is merely a blink.  Our last day which had our best weather dictated a trip to the Real Jardin Botanico.  Unfortunately, almost nothing was in bloom.  So after a brief visit there we did some shopping with Isabelle and prepared for our long journey home.

Thanks for following us on our travels yet again.  Next up, to New York with my son Benjamin in May and then tentatively back to Europe with Konnie later that month for her birthday if we can pull the arrangements together.

Wednesday was cold, yes cold, and wet so we opted to visit Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.  This magnificent museum is built around the collection assembled by Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his son.  It, as well as the Prado that we visited earlier, contain outstanding collections that are easily enjoyed by the casual art viewer.

On a much improved weather Thursday, we decided to continue to see sights in the Old Madrid area of the city.  Our visits included the Basilica Pontificia de San Miguel which stands on the site of an old Romanesque church a block from our apartment that was constructed between 1739 and 1746.  From there we hit the Plaza de Oriente in an effort to see the Opera House (Teatro Real) but there were no tours today.  So on to Museo Cerralbo.

As we have learned elsewhere (such as the Soane Museum in London that we only found because of or friend Jacquie Martinez), it is not always the big name places that are the most interesting and Museo Cerralbo is in that category.  This 19th century mansion is a monument to Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa.  The house is huge and gorgeous and the collection of "stuff" intense and endless.  Well worth a visit when you are here.  Lunch at Cascaras.

From there we headed to San Francisco el Grande, another unheard of jewel.  On the way there we hit the Muralla Arabe, a small stretch of outer defense wall that is all that is left of Madrid's Moorish heritage.  Anyway, unfortunately no pictures are allowed at San Francisco, but the interior is a remarkable building.  The artwork contained therein is spectacular including the magnificent frescoes on the dome and the dome is one of the largest in the world.  Larger than St. Paul's Cathedral and only outsized by St. Peter's at the Vatican and the Pantheon according to their literature.  A must see if you are in Madrid.  The tour is in Spanish and Isabelle did a terrific job of translating the highlights for Konnie and me and she again handled our communications with various vendors during the day.

This city has more restaurants than we have ever seen in a concentrated area.  We are a couple of blocks from a street named Calle Cava Baja and we counted 40 restaurants on that short stretch.  An excellent dinner at Emma & Julia's on Calle Cava Baja with generous treatment of us as their guests.  There you go.  We have killed Old Madrid this week hitting every highlight in the book.  Only one more day before the long trek home.

The construction of Catedral de la Almudena was begun in 1879 but was not completed until 1993 making it an extremely modern cathedral by European standards.  Its construction was slowed by the Spanish Civil War, involved multiple architects and I’ll bet the contractor was changed along the way also.  It must be interesting to span the evolving building technologies over a century plus.  In any case, in the Catholic cathedral tradition it turned out to be quite beautiful.

After a few stops at closed sites where the actual hours did not match those in the guide book, out Madrid exploration for the day included walking the Calle Mayor, Calle de Alcala and the Gran Via and then a walk through the La Latina area.  The architecture in Madrid is quite grand.

Lunch at the pricey Restaurante El Schotis on Cava Baja and dinner at La Camarilla, also on Cava Baja, where both staffs were helpful in guiding us through these crazy tapas.

So we started Monday later than we wanted but hopefully we are completely adjusted now.  We started the day at Arcade, the restaurant where we killed two hours on Saturday while we waited for our apartment to be ready.  As is often the case abroad, they treat us better on subsequent visits than we get treated when we frequent restaurants in our own backyard.

Then off to the Catedral Nuestra Senora de la Almudena (closed, we’ll try again tomorrow) and the Palacio Real.  The Palace is spectacular (no pictures allowed inside so few pictures today) with most of the decorative highlights being imported from Italy.  Then it was one of our walking tours hitting Plaza de Oriente, Jardines de Lepanto, Jardines de Sabatini, La Rosaleda Parque with its Templo de Debod, then past the Monumento a Cervantes (Don Quixote), past Plaza de Espana, down the Gran Via and back to our neighborhood near Plaza Mayor.  So far there is no comparison between the gardens here and those in London.

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called La Mordida de Fuentes (but they spoke Spanish so it counts!).  It did have many dishes that we do not see in the states.

Tuesday we will try to focus on the cathedral and other churches.  We’ll see how many we can catch open.

Konnie and I left Denver on March 16th with my granddaughter Isabelle for this year’s spring break trip with her.  This time we headed for Madrid.  Isabelle, now 14 and in the eighth grade, has been in a Spanish immersion program in school so we thought this would be a good place for her to test the progress from her immersion.

And given that that there is far less English spoken her than I expected, so far her Spanish has worked well and been a big asset to us.  We spent Saturday waiting for our apartment to be ready and getting familiar with the area around our apartment in Central Madrid including two hours in a coffee shop where the proprietors did not speak English but somehow delivered to us everything we mentioned to each other that we MIGHT be interested in consuming.

After visiting Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, Mercado de San Miguel and a “late” lunch at a lovely Tapas restaurant, we called it a day to make the time zone adjustment.

On Sunday we had a late start with lunch near Plaza Mayor eating outside at Kitchen Stories where we fought off a team of gypsies who were aggressively pursuing some of our food.  From there we spent the rest of the day at Museo del Prado before having dinner at Miau where Isabelle handled all of the communication with the staff.

The primary purpose of our winter break these past six years has been to escape some of our winter weather for a short while.  This trip accomplished that and not much else got done (other than work and reading) which explains the limited posts.  And returning to the same destination two years in a row also dictates fewer words and pictures.  But we did enjoy our time away as well as the time spent with our friends, Dale and Debbie Cummins from Liberty, Indiana and Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia.

But after a long discombobulated trip home that covered 28.5 hours from house to house, including an unexpected night in Chicago, we are back in Denver.  Time to plan for next year’s destination after a quick trip to New York City in a few days.

A few pictures to cover the last two weeks of our trip.

We spent Saturday at Smuggler’s Cove, a beach on the north side of Tortola about a mile from our rental house.  Upon returning from a snorkel, I entered an area filled with a giant school of smaller fish on which the pelicans were dining.  It caused me to ask myself, “what if I brought my camera into the water and stood here in the middle of the dining room?”  I did and below are some of my shots.  It was not easy to always properly focus on the subject given the water action on my arms as I held the camera at water level not to mention the obstacle of their speed and position relative to the sun.  But I thought these were almost good enough to share my experience.  Double click the thumbnail for a larger image.

We are taking a break from winter weather for the sixth year in a row with a return for the second time to Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  We came here again because of the very peaceful nature of this island (no large hotels), the wonderful views from our rental house and its terrific owner.  There won't be many posts from here as we don't do a whole lot on this trip.  Mostly catching up on work, reading, enjoying the sun and surf and continuing Words with Friends contests.

We are joined this first of our four weeks by Debbie and Dale Cummins of Liberty, Indiana (my home town) for their fourth visit with us and will be joined at the end of the trip by our other four time guests, Lisa and Dave Wangsness from Big Canoe, Georgia though Lisa also has her childhood roots in Liberty.

We are staying at a place called Limeberry Villa which is owned by Jon and Katy Morley.  They are extremely accommodating landlords and last night they had us and the guests from their other rental property here to their home island of Little Thatch, a 54 acre island five minutes off the eastern side of Tortola that is owned by a British businessman.  It used to be a resort but he now has Katy and Jon manage it solely for his use (with the exception of its Seagrape Cottage which is still available for rental http://www.seagrapecottage.net/index.html).  Swimming, snorkeling, kayaking and self-made pizzas baked in their very own pizza oven.  It was a fantastic evening and we are grateful for their hospitality.

My daughter Kristin and her family are here from Phoenix visiting our house near Steamboat Springs for the week after Christmas day.  I am spending a couple of days with them to play in the snow with my grandchildren.  Today we spent the day on the slopes of the Steamboat ski area.  They need snow badly but it was a beautiful day as indicated by the pictures.